NON-PARTY SPENDING DOUBLED IN 2010 BUT DID NOT DICTATE THE RESULTS

Winning Candidates Raised Less than Losers in the Competitive Races, and There Was Rough Equality in Spending by Others

The Campaign Finance Institute today released its first post-election tables on money in the 2010 House and Senate elections. Independent expenditures and electioneering communications by non-party groups grew to $280 million through Election Day, an increase of 130% from 2008. Independent spending by the national political parties fell 20% to $182 million.

Party and non-party spending to help competitive Democrats and Republicans was about equal across the parties. As a result, neither set of expenditures could be said to have tipped the electoral balance.

This is a change from 2008, when Democrats showed a substantial advantage in party spending. Democratic party committees still had an advantage over Republican party committees in 2010, but a narrower one than in 2008. The change stemmed from a decline among the Democratic committees. This cannot be attributed to the growth of pro-Republican non-party spending. (Table 1 shows party and non-party spending over time; table 2 shows the non-party organizations spending the most money in 2010).

Of course, 2010 was a national “wave” election. In other circumstances, such as may prevail in 2012, the importance of non-party money could change.

In Senate races, sixteen of the 37 elections in 2010 had combined party and non-party spending of $1 million or more. Colorado’s Senate race led the way with $13 million in party spending and $18 million in non-party spending, a total which more than doubled the candidates’ receipts as of mid-October. (See the attached Tables 5 and 8 for detailed analyses of the Senate races).

But the larger conclusions about 2010 can be seen better by looking at competitive House races taken as a group. (Tables 4 and 7 show the House data.) A full list of the eight attached tables appears below.

The following information covers the 103 most competitive House elections in 2010:

Defeated incumbents -- In the fifty races in which Republican challengers have been declared to date as having unseated Democratic incumbents:

Candidates: Winning challengers raised an average of $1.5 million as of October 13 compared to $2.2 million by the defeated incumbents. This is normal: defeated incumbents typically outspend successful challengers by wide margins.

Parties: In the same fifty districts, Republicans spent an average of $646,000 in party independent spending through election day, compared to $$641,000 for the Democrats.

Non-party: Non-party spending through election day favored the Republicans over Democrats by $704,000 to $549,000, but the difference was only a fraction of the difference between the two sets of candidates.

Undecided races -- In the nine races not yet decided as of this writing:

Candidates: Nine Democratic incumbents raised an average of $2.0 million; nine Republican challengers raised an average of $1.2 million.

Parties: Democrats spent an average of $487,000; Republicans $105,000.

Non-party: Reportable non-party spending in the districts favoring the Republican candidate came to $561,000, compared to $113,000 favoring the Democrats. Republican non-party spending matched the advantage the Democrats had in party spending in these districts.

Other Competitive Races: In the 44 other races decided by two-party margins of 55% or less:

Candidates: In the 9 competitive open races won by Republicans, the successful GOP candidate raised $1.4 million to the Democrat’s $2.2 million. In the 35 close races won by Democrats (a mixture of Incumbents and open seat candidates), the Democrat raised $1.5 million to the Republican’s $900,000.

Parties: In the 9 races won by Republicans, the Republican Party spent $495000 to the Democrats’ $933,000. In the 35 races won by Democrats, the Republican Party spent $211,000 to the Democrats’ $354,000.

Non-party: In the 9 races won by Republicans, non-party spending favoring the Republican averaged $800,000, compared to $332,000 favoring the Democrat. In the 35 races won by the Democratic candidate, non-party spending favoring the Republican averaged $571,000, compared to $151,000 for the Democrat.

It appears as if the one set of candidates most helped by a balance non-party spending favoring their side were the Republican candidates who lost with 45% of the vote or more. Based on their own receipts ($931,000), these could well have been candidates who would have lost by much more in a normal election year. However, the Republican non-party groups had said they were interested in helping to “expand the playing field,” and these figures (along with the nine undecided races) suggest that they did.

All numbers in this release will be revised in coming days as winners are declared in races that were still undecided when this went to press.

The Campaign Finance Institute is a non-partisan, non-profit institute affiliated with The George Washington University. Statements of the Campaign Finance Institute do not necessarily reflect the views of CFI's Trustees or financial supporters.